On This Day, 31 December 1918

Birmingham Daily Gazette 

Tuesday 31 December 1918

QUEUES OF WOMEN.

Birmingham War Workers Looking for Jobs.

DOMESTIC WORK BARRED.

The queues of women waiting outside the Labour Exchange in Corporation-street to receive unemployment pay yesterday were the longest which have yet been seen. There are thousands of munition girls looking for a new job, but by the vast majority of these domestic service is still barred.

“And no wonder either, now that they have experienced something like freedom,” said an official of a woman’s organisation whose work constantly brings her into contact with ex-munition workers. There will have to be enormous changes in the old conditions of domestic service before one in a thousand will look it. Personally, it’s the very last kind work that I should care to undertake, and nearly every girl feels the same.”

Women Orderlies

It had been rumoured that Birmingham was about to lead the way in the new era for domestic workers in instituting centres from which qualified women orderlies could be obtained to work instead of servants in private houses. Upon inquiry, however, a Gazette representative found that though such a scheme has certainly been talked of, it has not yet got beyond the region of discussion.

Vague and Non-existent

Reconstruction schemes, particularly in regard to women workers, seem to be either vague or non-existent at the present moment. “Far more women organisers and voluntary workers are ready and willing to undertake work that there is work for them to do just now”, said another official. “We are all waiting for a lead. Perhaps that lead will be given by the Women’s Sub-committee of the L.A.C.” Apparently no meeting of this sub-committee has been called since the signing of the armistice.